Despatches from the front have not been very reassuring, and the second
so-called Test Match was lost by Mr. Warner’s team by the large margin
of nine wickets.
The Englishmen lost because they did not score a sufficient number of
runs; and their chief trouble throughout this unfortunate tour appears
to come from the fact that their batting is extremely unreliable, and
they are without the help of steady batsmen of the stamp of Tom Hayward
or Quaife, who would go in first and stay there. Certainly Mr. Warner
can go in first, but in South Africa he cannot always stay there, and on
more than one occasion his side has had two wickets down with but a
small score on the board, and this is always a demoralising state of
affairs for a moderate batting side.
We understand that in their minor matches at home against clubs and
schools it has been the policy of the M.C.C. to send a team which shall,
more or less, and often enough less, be of relative strength or weakness
to the other side, in order that the game may not be too one-sided. So
that an error of judgment in estimating the strength of the opponents
may cost the match.
It appears to us that in organising this team for South Africa, the
M.C.C. authorities greatly underrated the strength of their opponents,
and so from the point of view of the South Africans the tour has rather
failed, since they have proved themselves a better lot of cricketers
than the visiting team.
On the other hand, an English team touring in Africa has, for mercenary
considerations, to play several games against odds in up-country places
where the standard of cricket is very low indeed, and where, probably,
the first-class African cricketers would never be seen. And for these
purposes the more powerful the visiting team the more futile becomes the
burlesque of cricket.
As proof of this we need only refer to a week’s work of Mr. Warner’s by
no means powerful team. They beat fifteen of King William’s Town by an
innings and 296 runs, the Englishmen scoring 415 runs for eight wickets
against 75 and 44 by the fifteen. In the next match eighteen of
Queenstown were beaten by an innings and 176 runs; the scores being 400
for eight wickets, as against 111 and 113 by the eighteen. For such a
performance as this it would obviously not be worth the while of a
first-rate cricketer to travel from England to King William’s Town, and
yet for the games against All South Africa it is equally not worth while
for a moderate cricketer to travel from England to Johannesburg.
Until recently the same difficulty beset the path of English teams
touring in Australia, that they were sent to play ridiculous matches
against battalions of bad players, and probably the M.C.C. in organising
this tour found it difficult to persuade the best amateurs to devote so
much time to a campaign which, roughly speaking, includes so few
first-class matches. And so Mr. Warner apparently finds himself in the
uncomfortable position of taking round a team too good for the country
players and not good enough for the town players.
In the second Test Match the scoring was singularly low for a good
matting wicket at Johannesburg. The Africans won with scores of 277 and
34 for one wicket, as against 148 and 160 by the M.C.C. team; and in the
M.C.C. second innings eight men made only 16 runs between them, which
reads like disappointing batting. On the other hand, eight of the
Africans scored double figures.
The third Test Match found Africa starting well enough with 385, every
one scoring double figures except Mr. Hathorn, who made 102. Thanks to a
fine innings by Mr. F. L. Fane, who made 143, the Englishmen got to
within 90 runs of their formidable opponents at the end of the second
day’s play, but in this innings six men only scored 17 runs between
them.
The third day of the third Test Match was good business for the
Africans, who hit up 349 runs for the loss of only five wickets, and
then dismissed Messrs. Warner and Hartley before the call of time,
leaving the Englishmen 425 run to the bad with only eight wickets in
hand. The English bowling was clearly to the liking of their opponents,
for again, with the exception of the not-out men, all scored double
figures. White 147, Tancred 73, Nourse 55, and Sinclair 48, doing most
of the damage. Mr. Crawford could not get a wicket, and Hayes was not
put on to bowl in the whole course of the match, and Lees with nine out
of the fifteen wickets that fell was the most successful of our bowlers.
The last day’s play brought the match to its logical conclusion, and the
M.C.C. team were easily beaten by 243 runs. Denton 61 and Crawford 34
being the only two men to score more than 20 runs.
An odd feature of the game was the success of the cricketers whose names
begin with S. It is needless to say there were none on the English side,
but the five who played for South Africa got all the wickets between
them, and caught all the catches, bar two; for Shalders, Sinclair,
Schwartz, Snooke, and Sherwell are the only African names which appear
in the score of M.C.C. except Vogler and White, who made three catches
between them. Snooke took twelve wickets in the match, and Sherwell
caught five men at the wicket.
So the first three of the so-called Test Matches were all lost, each one
by a bigger margin than its predecessors.
There can be but little interest left now in the tour of this M.C.C.
team, which went to Africa practically asking for defeat, and has
certainly suffered it. Probably the next time the South Africans desire
to entertain a good cricket team they will invite an Australian team to
come over and give them a good game, for the Australians can be trusted
to bring their best men upon such an occasion, and that is the way to
set about International cricket.
The recent headings in the newspapers, “England _v._ South Africa.
Crushing Defeat of England,” are not very pleasant reading, and are not
calculated to advance the prestige of English cricket, and it is our
sincere hope that in future, should the Marylebone Club be ever again
invited to organise a team to visit our cricket-playing Colonies, those
who are entrusted with the selection of the players will send either the
best or none at all.
It is unfair to the men themselves and to their Colonial hosts, and
especially to English cricket, that a team such as the one at present
touring in Africa should by any misnomer be regarded as representative
of England.